Herpetological Review 45(4), 2014
678 NATURAL HISTORY NOTES
and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna between Two
Con-tinents, between Two Seas. The University of Chicago Press,
Chi-cago, Illinois. 934 pp.). At 2216 h on 20 July 2009 in the
Chagres National Park in Cerro Brewster, Panamá, Panamá (9.31995°N,
79.28871°W, datum WGS84; elev. 800 m), we found a C. aterrima
preying on leafcutter ants (Acromyrmex sp.). This observation was
made on a cloudy night (mean temp. = 22.7°C) in a cloud forest
within a hole in the ground used for dumping waste. The frog sat on
one side of the passing group of ants, observing their movements
and employing a sit-and-wait feeding strategy. In a period of
approximately ten minutes it only ate two ants and removed pieces
of leaves from its mouth with its forelimbs. The frog and ants were
photographed and left without disturbance. This is the first report
of predation on leafcutter ants of genus Acromyrmex by C. aterrima
in its natural distribution.
We thank the Fundación Parque Nacional Chagres for providing
funding for the fieldwork, the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente for
providing the appropriate permissions and Ernesto Gómez for
verification genus of ants.
ÁNGEL SOSA BARTUANO (e-mail: [email protected]), and JORGE
GUERREL (e-mail: [email protected]), Sociedad Mastozoológica de
Pan-amá, Apartado 0835-00680, Panamá, Republic of Panamá.
ELEUTHERODACTYLUS WIGHTMANAE (Melodious Coqui). RE-PRODUCTION,
PARENTAL CARE, AND CALLING SITES. Eleu-therodactylus wightmanae is
a small anuran (mean SVL = 20.2 mm) common in high elevation
forests and inhabits forest leaf lit-ter (Stewart and Woolbright
1996. In Reagan and Waide [eds.], The Food Web of a Tropical Rain
Forest, pp. 273–320. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
Illinois). The species is listed as endan-gered on the IUCN Red
List (Angulo 2008. www.iucnredlist.org, Version 2014; accessed 26
September 2014); however, the Depart-ment of Natural and
Environmental Resources of the Common-wealth of Puerto Rico does
not list the species or consider it to be under any imminent threat
(Departamento de Recursos Natura-les y Ambientales. 2004.
Reglamento para Regir las Especies Vul-nerables y en Peligro de
Extinción en el Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico. Departamento
de Estado Número Reglamento 6766. ELA, DRNA, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
60 pp.).
Male E. wightmanae call up to 100 cm above the ground but
females rarely climb (Drewry and Rand 1983. Copeia 1983:941–
953). Little is known of the reproductive biology of this
species (Joglar 1998. Los Coquíes de Puerto Rico: Su Historia
Natural y Conservación. Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico,
San
Fig. 1. Ctenophryne aterrima feeding on leafcutter ants
(Acromyrmex sp.) in the cloud forest of Cerro Brewster, Chagres
National Park, Pan-amá.
Fig. 1. Eleutherodactylus wightmanae in Puerto Rico. A–C) Shape
and size characteristics of egg clutches in plastic tubes. D)
dorsal coloration patterns in hatchlings in the laboratory. E)
dorsal color-ation pattern in an adult in the field. F) dorsal
coloration pattern in a hatchling in the field. G–H) males guarding
egg clutches inside plas-tic tubes (arrow in (H) highlights
guarding male showing brooding behavior, with his fore limb in
contact with an egg).
Herpetological Review 45(4), 2014
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 679
Juan. 232 pp.) and information on its egg clutches is limited to
two observations: egg clutches having four and five eggs, one
clutch having eggs with a mean diameter of 4.39 mm (N = 3 eggs);
and both egg clutches being found inside curled leafs of Cecropia
peltata or “yagrumo” (Joglar et al. 2005. Herpetol. Rev.
36:433–434). Anecdotal accounts refer to male parental care
(Townsend 1996. In Powell and Henderson [eds.], Contributions to
the West Indian Herpetology: A Tribute to Albert Schwartz, pp.
229–239. SSAR Contributions to Herpetology, Vol. 12, Ithaca, New
York; Joglar et al. 2005, op. cit.). Herein, we provide data on egg
clutch characteristics, parental care, and calling sites that
expands our knowledge on the reproductive biology of the
species.
This study was carried out between 31 August 2013 and 16 May
2014 in the rainforest of the Sierra de Cayey mountains
(Cayey-Guayama municipalities) in southern Puerto Rico
(18.054405°N, 66.123019°W, datum WGS84; elev. 817 m). The major
vegetative cover (>50% of higher plants in the study area)
consists of Sierra Palm (Prestoea montana). We placed 121 plastic
tubes (diameter = 23.5 mm; length = 150–170 mm) 2 m apart from each
other, in each of two 20 × 20 m plots (total tubes: 242) on the
forest litter of the study area. The 20 × 20 m plots were approx.
200 m apart. The tubes were used by E. wightmanae as retreat and
breeding sites and we collected data on clutch size, egg diameter,
and clutch shape. Mean (± SD) number of eggs per clutch = 7.04 ±
1.85 (range: 4–11 eggs, N = 24 clutches); mean (± SD) egg diameter
was 4.53 ± 0.65 mm (range: 4–5.8 mm, N = 15 eggs from N = 6 egg
clutches). The most frequent shape of the egg mass was a radiating
arrangement of six eggs around a center egg, all deposited in a
single layer (Fig. 1A). Other shapes include an elongated egg mass
and eggs spread in a larger non-geometric design (Fig. 1B–C). Basic
dorsal coloration patterns for N = 22 adults (in decreasing order
of abundance) were: no obvious dorsal pattern (N = 9), reversed
comma (N = 7), reversed comma and light mid-dorsal line on a darker
background (N = 3), dark inter orbital band on a lighter background
(N = 2), light colored snout region on a darker background (N = 1).
Likewise, for N = 18 hatchlings from four egg clutches: no obvious
dorsal pattern (N = 11), reversed comma (N = 6), and reversed comma
and light mid-dorsal band (N = 1). When patterned, recently hatched
juveniles had similar coloration and the reversed comma pattern
typically found in adults (Fig. 1D–E). On one occasion, however, we
found a recently hatched juvenile with the pattern described above
along with a mid-dorsal stripe on a darker background (Fig. 1F)
which has not been observed in adults so far. Parental care, which
is performed only by the male, was observed in seven of the 24 egg
clutches (Fig. 1G–H) found during daytime hours (1500–1730 h). Data
on calling males were collected between 1859 h and 2115 h during
the sampling period. Calling males (N = 28) were found on
vegetation at heights between 0.0 m and 0.5 m above the ground
(mean ± SD = 0.25 ± 0.14 m). Calling males were found on surfaces
that included (in decreasing order of abundance): leaves of short
woody plants (8); dry leaflets of P. montana leaves on the ground
(5); dry sheaths of P. montana leaves on the ground (4); fronds of
ferns (4); leaf blades of herbaceous plants (3 on Poaceae, also
known as Gramineae); tree trunks (2); inside curled dry sheaths of
P. montana leaves on the ground (1); and leaves of seedlings of P.
montana (1).
Puerto Rico has two main seasons: a warmer rainy period (approx.
from May to late December) and a cooler dry period (approx. from
January to April). Between 31 August 2013 and 14 December 2013 we
found eight egg clutches (total = 57 eggs), while between 16
January 2014 and 14 April 2014 we found five egg clutches (total =
29 eggs). In only one visit in 16 May 2014 (a
month that marks the beginning of the warmer and rainy period)
we found 11 egg clutches (total = 83 eggs). The large number of egg
clutches recovered in May suggest that peak breeding in this
species may coincide with the onset of the warm, rainy season.
Therefore, egg clutch production by E. wightmanae may follow a
seasonal pattern similar to that in other Puerto Rican
Eleutherodactylus with the exception of the ground-dwelling Puerto
Rican Dwarf Coqui, E. unicolor, which shows the opposite pattern
(reviewed by Joglar 1998, op. cit.).
Extensive surveys conducted by our research team since May 2014
in forested mountain areas (>13 sites) throughout Puerto Rico
revealed that the species is abundant and frequently found at every
site. However, repeated visits to a single site revealed
substantial variation in calling intensity for this species, which
may lead to false absences if acoustic surveys are not conducted on
successive nights at each site.
We thank E. Agosto-Torres, Ashley Bernardi-Salinas, Sheila M. De
León-Santiago, Y. M. Flores-Rodríguez, Rayza M. Hernández-Muñíz,
Tessaliz Quiles-Delgado, Coralys Vicéns-López, and Shayna Zema for
their field assistance.
NEFTALÍ RÍÓS-LÓPEZ, Department of Biology, University of Puerto
Rico-Humacao Campus, Puerto Rico 908, Humacao, 00792, Puerto Rico
(e-mail: [email protected]); DANIEL DÁVILA-CASANOVA, Department
of Environmental Sciences, University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras
Campus, Avenida Barbosa y Avenida Juan Ponce De León, San Juan,
00931, Puerto Rico (e-mail: [email protected]).
HYLA ARENICOLOR (Canyon Treefrog). FEEDING ATTEMPT. Most species
of tree frogs consume primarily invertebrates. Hyla arenicolor is
known to feed on arthropods, mainly insects (Abbadié-Bisogno 2004.
Unpubl. thesis. FES, Iztacala; Winter et al. 2007. Herpetol. Rev.
38:323). The predation of lizards by hy-lid frogs has been
previously documented, including lizards of the genus Anolis
(Campbell 2007. Herpetol. Rev. 38:440; Preston 2010. Herpetol. Rev.
41:199). To our knowledge this is the first ac-count of a predation
attempt by H. arenicolor on Anolis nebulosus (Clouded Anole). At
1711 h on 04 December 2013, at Municipal-ity of Valparaiso,
Zacatecas, México (22.664482°N, 103.609491°W, datum WGS84; elev.
1874 m) an adult H. arenicolor was found trying to swallow an A.
nebulosus of similar size. After a few min-utes the lizard was
regurgitated, possibly because it was too large (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1. Adult Hyla arenicolor attempting to eat a similar-sized
Anolis nebulosus.
